I have led a charmed life,’ Tim Bell muses from the sofa of his beautifully decorated Chelsea townhouse.

‘I want to be the sort of person who walks into a restaurant and people say: “Isn’t that so-and-so?”

‘It’s like a woman wanting to be beautiful and to turn heads, but it’s insecurity, not vanity.’

Tim Bell, or to give him his full title, Lord Bell of Belgravia, has long since achieved his ambition of being recognised in restaurants thanks to his status as the godfather of PR and Margaret Thatcher’s favourite guru.

Lord Bell was former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's favourite PR man, he is pictured here (centre) with Baroness Thatcher (right) and her husband Denis (left)

His fame – or notoriety – has gone skywards in the past few weeks due to his role in a row that has brought down the communications firm, Bell Pottinger, that bore his name – and caused the tinderbox of South African politics to ignite.

It also brought to boiling point the long-simmering feud between him and James Henderson, the PR company’s recently toppled chief executive. Each blamed the other for the downfall of the firm last month.

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Even against that tumultuous background, it has been a momentous week. On Wednesday, he celebrated his 76th birthday and on the same day got married for the third time, to Jacky Phillips, his girlfriend of four years.

Tim Bell's marriage to Jacky Phillips was on Wednesday, the day of his 76th birthday

His life may be a whirlwind but there is an atmosphere of almost Zen-like serenity in his exquisitely appointed living room, with its blonde wood flooring and perfectly pale walls.

The couple’s dog, Lottie, a Yorkshire terrier sporting a Swarovski crystal collar, sits attentively on my lap while her master speaks, his words punctuated by incessant cigarettes and the regular chirrup of his mobile phone.

Away from the hurly-burly of the PR world, he is in a reflective mood. The ageing adviser knows he is facing realities that no spin doctor – even one as skilled as himself – can magic away.

He says the ageing process has been kind to him. ‘I can’t work very much now. I used to run in the fast lane, now I can’t keep up and I don’t want to. But I’m fine, I’m very healthy,’ he says, dismissing gossip he is unwell. ‘I’ve just had a complete body scan. I don’t have any cancer at all.’

He did have colon cancer about 25 years ago, then had his gall bladder removed a couple of years later, a complication of the chemotherapy.

He adds: ‘I had a triple bypass, that must have been ten or 15 years ago. It is like a car being serviced, I would recommend it to anyone. I have had Type Two diabetes since I was 50 but I control it.’ Last year, he had a stroke.

‘Maybe I’m indestructible. But I do think a lot about my own mortality. I dream about dying. I am more and more frightened of it.

‘I talk to Jack about it a lot. I have become more and more reliant on her to look after me because I don’t have a nurse, I have a wife who is like a nurse.

‘I’m optimistic but I don’t know how long I’ll last. I have no idea.’

James Henderson was in charge at Bell Pottinger when the firm collapsed

Despite intimations of mortality, their wedding was a joyous affair at Chelsea Register Office – she wore Alexander McQueen, he wore Ermenegildo Zegna – followed by a small tea party at his house.

Now that he works less – though he has his own company Sans Frontieres – he is obsessed with cricket and watches a lot of TV drama. He is a big fan of the ITV series Liar, which has a ‘he-said, she-said’ storyline about an alleged rape.

He and Jacky wave off suggestions that with the wedding, Bell has got one up on his arch enemy Henderson, whose own plans to marry wealthy divorcee Heather Kerzner next month have been put on ice.

‘I don’t hate him. Contempt is the nearest,’ says Bell, who was ousted from Bell Pottinger last year. Does he want to make peace with it? ‘No, I need to confirm my version of events is accurate.’

I don’t hate him. Contempt is the nearest

Later, though, he backtracks: ‘Actually I do hate him, but I’d like not to.’

He and Jacky insist he warned against taking on the £100,000-a- month contract that brought down Bell Pottinger. It was a deal to act for a South African company called Oakbay, which was controlled by the Gupta family, who have close links with President Jacob Zuma.

In an email, Bell initially expressed enthusiasm. But he insists he then warned that the contract would create conflicts of interest with other South African clients such as Johann Rupert, the boss of luxury goods firm Richemont.

Bell was panned for an interview he gave to Kirsty Wark on Newsnight. He tried to put his side of the story, but his ever-present mobile phone kept going off.

‘Johann Rupert rang when I was on Newsnight to say, “Thank you for being the man I thought you were.” I showed the phone to Kirsty but she didn’t understand it,’ he says.

Tim Bell being interviewed by Kirsty Wark after resigning as chief executive at Bell Pottinger

Bell is no stranger to controversial clients, including the former Chilean dictator General Pinochet and Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus.

He worked in advertising in the 1980s before moving into the then fledgling trade of PR and likes to speak his mind. He is a devout Right-winger who despises the European Union and describes the NHS as ‘a terrible idea’.

Despite his obvious devotion to Jacky, it’s clear there will be three people in the marriage: the two of them and the other significant woman in his life, the late Baroness Thatcher, for whom he was a close confidant.

I miss her still, I think about her every day, most days

Lord Bell on Margaret Thatcher

‘I miss her still, I think about her every day, most days.’

Theresa May, he says, lacks the stature of her predecessor, though he thinks Thatcher would probably have ‘messed up’ the Brexit negotiations.

‘Because she gets very, very cross,’ he says, in the present tense. ‘She was an easy woman to compliment because she accepted it in a gracious way. That is rare these days because people think you are going to do something like Harvey Weinstein.’

Would you accept him as a client? ‘No. Because he is revolting.’

Are there any clients he regrets taking? There’s a pause and then: ‘Only the ones I didn’t do a good job for, when it didn’t work.

‘I don’t really think about that. I regret the clients I would like to have had and didn’t. I would have liked to have had BP at the time of the oil spill, I would have done a much better job,’ he says, feeding Lottie a ginger biscuit.

It has become more difficult to be a good PR man or woman, he says, because of the outbreak of social media. ‘I don’t tweet,’ he growls.

‘There is too much fake news. We live in a world that no longer knows right from wrong. I will deviate from what is right, I know that, but at least I know what it is.’

His life, he says, is best summed up by his gossipy 2014 memoir, which is entitled Right Or Wrong.

‘There is a lot that is left out,’ laughs Jacky. ‘We’ve said when Tim dies I will write the real one.’

No doubt the publishers of London will be crashing their Jaguars to get to her door.

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